Some of those are a bit shameless, but pretty much every artist works from photo references, and keeps a ton of photo reference on file. The first step of most projects is to assemble tons of references (often assembled into a mood board), and google image search makes it even easier. They just didn't do a good job to take that reference into their own pieces in most cases.

Pictures of buildings and people won't get much variation because there are standard poses, angles, and composition rules on how to make a subject look interesting. You see one of the icons has the arc de triomphe, and it matches perfectly with that one image. That's because that one image is taken from the right angle to make it look the best. If you google image search it, you'll see all the best pictures of the arc are taken at or near that angle (from either side), with the only difference in the pictures being the time of day. That's also the one of the same angles that CAD software renders buildings at to show them off.

What I'm looking at is a clever and efficient way to generate customized assets... most of them they've sufficiently modified that it's apparent they didn't just slap a filter over the original and call it a day.

What I'm looking at is a clever and efficient way to generate customized assets... most of them they've sufficiently modified that it's apparent they didn't just slap a filter over the original and call it a day.

Yeah.

I think they licensed it all (the stock photo) and if needed, remove the brand (since it different type of licensing) - case in point the refrigirator. And after that they turn it into the same art style, which is nice.

This is pretty normal, and this is how stock photo owner makes money. By licensing it out.

It also happen in movie making. People been taking things and turn it into prop all the time. Even Terranova if I remember spray painted a toy gun black and use it as a gun (Nerf?).

Stock photos can be licensed (normally a single fixed-amount payment, or occasionally a royalty based scheme) for usage. This way you don't have to take your own images and can get on with legally creating your product.

Im not a native english spear, so I'm not sure about what stock photos refer to. But if it's about public domain images, isn't it legal to use them?

In a lot of countries, there is no such thing as "public domain". In places where the concept does exist, the original author either has to be dead for a long time, or they have to explicitly write up some legal words that state that they have given up their copyright over the work.If I take a photograph and share it online, it's still owned by me and can't be reproduced without my permission. If EA copied it into one of their games (even if they re-painted it), I could sue them for copyright infringement. Legally, you need explicit permission from the author.

Sure, if you're in a country that does not have the concept of public domain, you need explicit permission from the author. But the concept does exist in the US, right? If the images are on public domain of the US, there's nothing wrong with using them, is there?

Sure, if you're in a country that does not have the concept of public domain, you need explicit permission from the author. But the concept does exist in the US, right? If the images are on public domain of the US, there's nothing wrong with using them, is there?

You have to know for certain that they are public domain. If you grab an image of Google Images, or Imgr, etc, then you have no way of knowing. Public domain, does not mean "in the public". If you download an image and you don't have documentation with it that says what the license is (public domain or otherwise), then you have to assume it's protected by copyright.

I know. I'm asking about actual images in public domain, not mentioning google images, mentioning images on public domain. Not asking about the EA case, not asking about what they did or anything If images are on public domain, theres no legal reason for not using them on comercial projects, is there?

In at least one case, someone in that thread contacted the original owner of the image (since it was a photo of a basically-unknown but google-able actor), and they were quite surprised to learn that the image had been used without ever contacting them.

It's hard to tell just by looking at the images whether they are close to pixel perfect (i.e., created by applying some filter, which clearly is copyright violation), or were independently created using a reference (it's not clear to me that say, "side on shot of an elephant" is something covered by copyright, though it's no doubt a big gray area - copyright that is, not the elephant...)

The thread is from May 2011, and even then suggests that this is common for games - are there any independent references or evidence showing that this actually occurred, or is it just based on guesswork from Google searches?

Some of the claims look particularly dubious - I mean, of course Himeji looks the same, that's because there's only one Himeji!

If you could copyright "angle from which the camera was taken", then pretty much every Stonehenge picture would be a violation (since almost all photos are taken from the angle where it looks nicest - when I visited Stonehenge, I noticed how in reality it looks much more of a complete shambles, because there's only one viewpoint that you normally ever see, where it looks just right).

You can do the same trick with a lot of things. E.g., a Google image Search of Eiffel Tower shows lots of near identical photos in terms of angle of the shot and what the Eiffel Tower looks like, but clearly they're different photos...

Same for Himeji, an awful lot of photos use that same viewpoint.

Other ridiculous examples include the sticks of dynamite, because that's the classic iconic image of a bundle of dynamite sticks! Same for bananas.

ETA: Turn to page 2 and it gets worse - they think it must be a copy because two images both show "holding a weapon above your head in a classic pose, whilst snarling"? And donkey and cow heads look the same? To me, most donkeys and cows look the same. And with thousands of images on the Internet, not unlikely that you'll find two from the same angle.

Plus one of the guys saying it's okay for fan mod projects to do the same thing.